


Cassonade

by Opacifica



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Friendships, Dirk Kanaya Friendship, Discussion of Alcoholism/Substance Abuse, Discussion of Trickster Arc, F/F, Happy Ending, Illustrated, Jake Kanaya Friendship, M/M, gone horribly right, jewish strilondes, rosemary wedding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28756854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opacifica/pseuds/Opacifica
Summary: Weddings are liminal spaces. Rose and Kanaya's nuptials, but with the accompaniment slowed down enough for all of the attendees to waltz along. What if a few things in postcanon went right, for once?A story of a wedding, in three perspectives. Brilliant illustrations by @PanDaePan.
Relationships: Jake English/Dirk Strider, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam
Comments: 8
Kudos: 78
Collections: DirkJake Big Bang 2k21





	Cassonade

You never met The Mayor, but if the Mayoral Estate he left behind is anything to go by, the guy had taste. In advance of the actual sunrise, soft pink light seeping over the horizon illuminates acres of manicured lawns, interspersed with a literal rainbow of proprietary rosebush cultivars, fountains, and dignified statuary.

Today, the hazy dawn also illuminates the half-assembled ceremony space, a massive outdoor dance floor, and a forest of tables and chairs, the flurry of activity necessary to complete preparations for Earth C’s first and most elaborate deific nuptial celebration by…

You check the time on your phone, pausing at the window through which you’ve been silently observing the proceedings. It’s a little after six in the morning, now. While the starting festivities will formally begin at twelve noon, the actual ceremony will be completed about twelve hours from now. Dave was insistent on that one. 18:00, international time.

Superficially, at least, he seems more enthused about the proceedings than Rose. But that’s true of most things, even when he doesn’t get to prance around under the auspices of being anyone’s ‘best man’. You can’t really blame the guy. The morning already feels positively electric with - well, some kind of energy.

Rose and Kanaya reserved the entirety of the Mayoral Estate for the day, and that includes the opulent pink-marble palazzo set in the center of the grounds. You joined the rest of Rose’s half of the wedding party in raucously occupying one wing the previous night. It was nice. You don’t want to sell her short. The fact is, you don’t see her earnestly happy often enough to be an especially good judge of the state, and her delight, however mildly sardonic and couched in her typical affect, was and has been sincere over the past week leading up to her wedding.

You check the time on your phone again. The clock seems to have slowed to a crawl. There’s dead zero chance of Rose being awake before eight or nine. No one who participated is going to miss you, or god fucking forbid, run into you in the hall.

It’s a nice enough place, you guess. Jake just about had an aneurysm on the spot when he learned that Troll National Treasure 3 was set partially in the halls of the estate, only to deflate substantially when reminded that the wedding itself, as well as the proceedings to follow, would be set exclusively in the sprawling gardens.

If you were a better boyfriend, you would have raised the idea of including him in the bridal party with Rose. He probably would have gotten a real kick out of it. More than you, anyway. He handles these sorts of events with more aplomb than you can typically muster up, which is a low fucking bar to begin with.

But there’s plenty of shit happening in that area of your general existence that you’re not too eager to air out publicly. Nothing bad. It’s great, being with him. Unilaterally, unquestionably, overwhelmingly _great_. The sheer idea that you’re _together_ -together, somehow, continues to put you metaphorically on your ass every time you’re reminded that it’s a legitimate thing, not just some bullshit your overactive subconscious made up and hasn’t woken up from yet.

That’s sort of the issue.

Or would be, if he were here. But he isn’t. It’s just you staring out onto the vast rose-colored granite veranda, watching distant figures move piles of chairs, trim flower bushes, put together the wedding of the multimillennium.

Roxy knows what the fuck she’s doing with this stuff, you guess. Though when and where she managed to pick up the skillset, you’ll never be completely sure. In the pale pink light of dawn, the goings-on outside take on a dreamlike quality, and you turn away from the window and resume pacing down one of many hallways, the palms of your hands itching for the hand guard of your sword.

It’s quiet, still, _pretty_. Unreal. The sheer fact of ‘things going way too well’ puts you on edge like nothing else. Admittedly, a lot of shit about the present situation has your blunted nails digging into the meat of your hands.

You’re not good at this sort of thing. Rose and Rox have taken turns coaching you, in varying capacities, with varying levels of sardony and exasperated sincerity, respectively. None of it has fucking _taken_ , obviously.

Rounding a corner, you find yourself in a near-identical hall, this one with wide, ornate bay windows opening over a lawn dotted with the workstations of caterers, vehicles laden with fresh flowers, the trucks carrying in the remainder of the materials for the dance floor. South-facing. The sunrise isn’t touching this part of the grounds just yet. You watch, the sound of your breathing striking you as excessively loud in the silent hall, as a small crew of consorts slowly carts stacks of wooden floortiles out of the bed of a truck.

It’s all coming together. Great shit happening here. Tugging the collar of your overstarched dress shirt - assigned to you as part of the wedding party, god help you - you turn your attention back to what you do best. Pacing. Not nervously. Scoping out the area, actually. Assessing the terrain. Rox could have sold you this whole concept a lot more easily if she’d called it ‘on the ground security detail’ or literally anything other than ‘father of the bride duty, cmon dirky baby, dont u wanna walk ur lil girl down the aisle w me all fancylike?’

That - well. You don’t think anything about that. You have absolutely zero thoughts on the matter. Actually, no, one thought, you think Rose could ask you for a kidney and you’d figure out a way to give her both, Heroic or not. And she wants this whole thing done right. That much is obvious. She couches it in vagaries and misdirection, but you’d be confused, at this point, if she didn’t.

This isn’t a bit she’s doing. Or else this is an enormous, incredibly complicated, totally fucking incomprehensible bit, and you’re all going to have a hell of a laugh over it later.

But she wants her parents to walk her down the aisle. You’re her parent. A parent. Something like that, allegedly. If you can’t be sired by your own father or whatever the shit, store bought is fine. Two-percent skim soy-protein fat-free meat substitute ectodad. In a rented suit that probably cost about as much as a mid-sized sedan.

Is it seriously supposed to be this fucking tight around the neck? It feels like you can’t breathe.

As you’ve walked, you’ve hung close to the perimeter, and you’re grateful for that, now, because the wall takes your weight pretty easily, your hand splayed out and steadying yourself, as you consider whether to complete the cinematic picture and press your forehead to the partially-gilded wallpaper.

Okay. You’ve fucking got this. Don’t be crazy. Don’t be fucking _crazy_ about this. That was the whole point of doing this alone. No insane slipups. No... whatever the fuck it is with you and Jake that makes you act like a grass-fed free-range _lunatic_ sometimes.

That was the whole point. Just be regular, for Rose. Don’t ruin the whole fucking concept of marriage for her. Prove it can be good for someone, at least. Prove love is real and happiness is possible and happy endings aren’t just for people without your ectogenetics turning their brains to macerated, pulpy contentment-antipathic gazpachos of pure mental illness.

No pressure. She’s already better than halfway there. Just don’t - just don’t... fumble..? in the last... quarter. Inning. Round. Sports shit. _No pressure_. Ice fucking cold. _Absolute_ zero, actually. Your sheer, undeniable chill throughout this entire production will make the allegorical cucumber look positively sweltering.

You’re thriving. This is great, and you’re thriving, or you would be, if you could catch your breath - _how the fuck do people wear collared shirts without popping the fucking collar, you’re itching to pop it, just once, just for a second -_

Fabric rustles in one of the semi-sunken window-seat apertures. 

They don’t have curtains. The Mayor apparently didn’t believe in curtains, or something moronic like that, with a perfectly sensible civic explanation about ‘governmental transparency’, probably. So you’re not alone here in this hostile-yet-plush hallway, you guess, and the interloper is definitely not locally-sourced from Rose’s bridal prep party in the western wing of the manse. They were all accounted for when you slipped out after awkwardly getting dressed in the dark, and would’ve had to lurk past you, somehow. Not likely.

Your sword is drawn and you’re poised for combat before you’re even done having that series of positively inane thoughts. Thank fuck, finally a situation you know how to deal with.

Stepping lightly away from the wall, situating yourself for anything that could possibly come next, you move into position, never turning your back on the potential threat.

DIRK: What the fuck are you doing in here? This is a private event, and you’ve got ten seconds to lay down your name and business before your head hits the floor, so talk fast.  


It takes slightly less than ten seconds to recognize Kanaya, minus her typical face of makeup, in a long white terrycloth robe, with cold cream under her eyes and a cup of what looks like coffee at her lips, but her slightly raised eyebrow of mild disapproval is actually pretty distinctive.

KANAYA: Good Morning  


DIRK: Uh.  


KANAYA: And A Spirited ‘Uh’ To You Too  


KANAYA: Clearly I Have Much To Learn About Human Biofamilial Dynamics  


KANAYA: Rose Did Not Inform Me Of This Impromptu Ritual Combat Practice  


KANAYA: You Must Forgive My Ignorance I Would Have Brought My Chainsaw Had I Only Known  


She’s practically folded into the bay window seat, too tall for the space, still shrouded in shadow. It isn’t morning on this side of the mansion just yet, but from the angle at which she’s sitting, you guess she might have been trying to watch the sunrise.

Reflexively, you lower the tip of your katana, though you don’t de-equip it just yet. She notices. You notice her noticing, and reciprocate the notice, as strangely profane as it is, seeing her ‘in progress’ rather than wafting into any room she inhabits, impossibly well-outfitted, face painted with the artistry of an actress on the red carpet, a hand resting protectively in the small of Rose’s back. 

It’s impossible not to see these things, the way other couples touch each each other. Kanaya, despite her unmistakable grace - you would have made her for a swordswoman, if Rose hadn’t glowingly recounted tales of prowess with the aforementioned _chainsaw_ \- moves with a near-gravitational tether to her fiancee.

Wife, now. Almost. Soon. Fucking hell.

You wouldn’t pick up on it if it wasn’t something you pay attention to, specifically. It’s hard to imagine Kanaya without Rose, and yet… here she is. Framed by the protrusion of the bay window, the sparse cushions that furnish it. Unmistakably alone.

You clear your throat.

She sets down her cup of coffee, but not the elegantly canted-up brow.

DIRK: My bad. Didn’t expect to see you up this early.  


KANAYA: Im Diurnal  


KANAYA: More So Than Most Humans It Seems  


DIRK: Sure does seem. You got me there.  


KANAYA: I Was Attempting To Humorously Defuse The Tension Of Your Decapitation Threat With My Trenchant Comment About Ritual Combat  


KANAYA: You Are Welcome To Put Away Your Sliceapparatus At Any Time You Wish  


KANAYA: Unless I Unwittingly Described A Legitimate Human Practice In Which Case I Hope You Will Sportingly Grant Me A Moment To Retrieve My Own Weapon  


You cough, half turning away as you conclusively return your sword to your specibus. Still not especially wanting to lose track of anything she does. It’s one thing to know that she has your squishy-wizard ectodaughter’s back - that legitimately helps you sleep better at night. It’s another matter one-on-one.

Frankly, you’re accustomed to being the most immediately dangerous person in any room you walk into. That’s not self aggrandizement, it’s just the truth. It’s your thing. From the way Kanaya looks at you, and the way she places herself, relative to you, relative to Rose, on the occasions that you’ve interacted - well, you’re not making it up. She sees it, too.

The two of you are playing the same sort of game. One that most other people seem to think ended when you passed into the victory state. But it was never SBURB. It’s just you, and a world you can never completely trust not to cut your throat if you give it half a chance.

You raise your open palms in a gesture of placation. Kanaya nods agreeably and returns to her coffee.

DIRK: I’m more impressed that you managed to get a chainsaw into the venue than anything. Roxy had to go to bat for me on the katana front. Security shit and all. My emotional support sword schtick didn’t fly the way I’d hoped it would.  


KANAYA: The Chainsaw Is Also Lipstick  


DIRK: Cool.  


KANAYA: Yes  


She finishes the coffee with a prim sip of the dregs, glancing regretfully into the base of the cup before she sets it down again.

DIRK: You’re not fasting?  


Rose didn’t exactly make a production of it, but she turned down even a bottle of orange soda with the perfectly reasonable excuse while the rest of her session got messily intoxicated over a wizard movie marathon. You figured it was a couple thing, but, well. Whatever.

KANAYA: No  


KANAYA: It Would Not Carry The Same Meaning For Me  


DIRK: Makes sense.  


KANAYA: Youre Not Preparing With The Rest Of The Bridal Party  


DIRK: Nah. I’d just be in the way, it’s abundantly not my scene. Shit’s shot in Atlanta for tax credits while I’m just fucking around on-location in some fancy locale, waiting for the director to get back in town.  


KANAYA: I See  


You consider whether this might be an appropriate moment to make an exit, but you’re not completely sure where to go. It’s not like you were planning on skulking around in the mansion for the entire lead-up to the wedding. In hindsight, you’re not sure what you _were_ planning, but... look how well those typically work out for you.

KANAYA: Your Tie Is Knotted Backwards  


Shit.

KANAYA: Im Sure It Would Be Very Easy To Fix If You Would Permit Me To Assist You  


You step back a pace as she straightens up and stretches briefly in the window seat, but nod your assent as she stands to her full height, well over a head taller than you, even without accounting for the horns. Close to Jake’s height, but not taller.

The urge to fuck with your collar only increases under her scrutiny.

KANAYA: Did You Follow A Tutorial  


DIRK: That easy to tell?  


KANAYA: I Cant Think Of Any Other Way You Could Achieve This Outcome Frankly Its Perfectly Inverted  


KANAYA: Hideously Mangled But Quite Innovatively So  


KANAYA: Im Almost Impressed  


DIRK: Yeah, it was this tack or a hangman’s noose. I know exactly one knot without hitting up the professionals on Wikipedia for strats. Rose assured me the alternative would be in poor taste.  


KANAYA: She Was Correct As She Often Is  


KANAYA: Hold Still Please  


Her hands are strangely room-temperature, like a mannequin’s fingertips, and her movements are precise and dispassionate. You have the odd sense of interacting with a robot. Like you’re a child again, feverishly trying to program Sawtooth to give a hug, like in the movies. Not sure if it’s quite the same thing, but it’s close enough, because it’s what you have.

As cloth runs over cloth, you feel the collar chafe more acutely against your scar, a non-feeling feeling that can only be described as ‘weird as fuck’. Kanaya reties your tie in a series of untraceable movements, and leaves it much more comfortable than it was. Maybe you tightened the thing to excess, trying to get it to look right when it pretty clearly _wasn’t_.

Taking a step back, she surveys her work. Her eyes are a deep late-summer-chlorophyll green, familiar but alien all the same.

KANAYA: Very Good  


DIRK: You sure know what you’re doing there.  


KANAYA: Rose Is Fond Of These Accessories  


KANAYA: I Do Hope At Least One Member Of Her Bridal Party Is Capable Of The Feat  


DIRK: Roxy and Callie have something tie-related going on between them. I figure Rox has her covered, though it’s a good thought.  


DIRK: And this whole neckwear situation is yet another reason I’m not hanging out with the retenue, for the record.  


DIRK: What’s your excuse? Didn’t you have some vaguely analogous get-together?  


She straightens your collar in a last disconcertingly intimate moment, then takes a careful, measured step back, leaving a very appropriate distance between the two of you. You hardly have to crane your neck to make eye contact, which feels like a decision made by design.

Space player, right.

You’d think with three of them running around on Earth C, you’d have some understanding of what they... do, precisely, beyond the obvious. Spacey shit. Tying ties, easing social situations. _Knowing things_ , to go by your best frame of reference. That’s a collection of traits, but it’s not a very useful unifying theory of what the fuck is going on, there.

KANAYA: Karkat And Terezi Are Sleeping Off The Evenings Shenanigans  


KANAYA: Nothing All That Elaborate  


KANAYA: There Are Very Few Of Us Alive And Present Which Puts Something Of A Damper On Things Celebrationwise  


DIRK: I hear that. Fucked up, outliving that many of your friends.  


KANAYA: Thats Correct It Is Pretty Fucked Up Having Killed A Non Negligible Statistical Quotient Of Said Friends As Well But Bygones And All  


KANAYA: And I Dont Know Sometimes I Still Get Feelings  


DIRK: Feelings? No kidding, like some kind of fourteen year old kid or something?  


She exhales in a sound that’s almost like a wry laugh, but not quite there yet.

KANAYA: In A Sense Yes  


KANAYA: I Left My Proclivities For Legitimate Divination Very Firmly In The Game And Specifically My Session By All Accounts And I Do Not Consider That A Loss  


KANAYA: But Neither Vibes Nor The Perception Thereof Is Off Limits To Me  


DIRK: I’d riff further, but I guess I had the same general impression.  


DIRK: Concern.  


KANAYA: Contextually Warranted Vigilance  


DIRK: Yeah. Seems like a crossroads, doesn’t it?  


KANAYA: Perhaps To You  


KANAYA: From Where I Am Standing I See Only One Road  


KANAYA: One Worth Walking Carefully And Deliberately  


KANAYA: And I Could Not Sleep  


DIRK: That’ll usually do it.  


KANAYA: I Am More Useful While Fully Conscious  


KANAYA: And Thus  


KANAYA: Coffee  


KANAYA: Contemplative Solitude As Well Though That Did Not Last For Very Long  


DIRK: I’ll drink to that. Or I would, if I was some kind of ‘liberal use of stimulants’ guy.  


KANAYA: Im Familiar With That Characteristic Of Yours Or Lack Thereof  


You actually do think back, at that, since not _all_ of what you know about your daughter-in-law to be is absorbed via Rose-adjacency-osmosis. Just a lot of it. You’ve interacted before, at your partial-collective 17th birthday party, a bonfire on a Vancouver beach familiar to both Egcrockers and deeply disorienting to anyone else in the band of celebrants with a more complicated relationship with the ocean than ‘it’s pretty and there.’

She helped you build the fire while you avoided dipping your toes in the December-cold surf. Mostly in silence. That, at least, made you want to like her, if you could figure out a way to pull it off.

Then she spent the rest of the night cradling Rose in her lap like a fucking faberge egg, haunting flame-shadows running down their faces as they whispered inaudible comments back and forth, your ectodaughter smiling mischievously with a face that looks so eerily like yours, from a distance, at least. And Jake sat exactly half a meter away from you all evening, still and rigid as a spar of driftwood.

You really tried not to be jealous. What a dumbshit thing to be jealous of. It’s different for them. Rose and Kanaya never got wrenched assbackwards into bad-trip sugar-high semi-het polyamory courtesy of anyone present, as far as you know. Of course they can afford to move at a slightly less _glacial_ pace. Of course they can touch each other without flinching. In public, no less. And they probably talked and shit on the way home, too, instead of flying back to the Consort Kingdom in the most uncomfortable silence conceivable by humankind.

It doesn’t seem fucking realistic, the way they love each other. The way Rose smiles with the same typically grim-set pair of lips that you see in the mirror when you wash your face in the morning. At the sheer mention of Kanaya’s name. Like it’s _easy_ for her.

You know it isn’t that simple. It never is. But it’s a knife between the ribs, how easily they pretend.

How easily _Kanaya_ seems to pull it off at least. You know Rose too well to describe anything she does as ‘emotionally uncomplicated’ or straightforwardly ‘blissful’. Even in the lead-up to the day, fasting like she’s asking forgiveness for something. A clean slate that she knows she needs, though your merry band of godly misfits has sure as fuck wrecked every tablet within reach.

You consider finding an excuse to walk away. Kanaya has picked up the mug, turning it over in asynchronously indelicate hands, her nails painted a rich jade color, but in a way that can’t disguise the fact that she’s a woman who acts on the world. Her grey-green pallor is dotted with callouses and scars to that effect. If you glanced down at your own hands, you would see a similar story etched in brown skin and age-faded marks of your own. It’s overwhelmingly fucking strange, still, just looking at her as an entity distinct from Rose’s shoulder at parties. You’re not sure if you _want_ to have anything in common with her.

Like, you’d rather not think of yourself as Jake’s deeply uncomfortable social shadow, though that’s probably how you come off to the casual observer. At best. You know how fucked up it probably looks, when the two of you ‘make appearances’ and prove that, despite regularly kicking the absolute shit out of each other on the webshow you’ve been working on, neither of you is to the ‘casually holding hands’ stage of things, or the ‘not treating mundane public physical contact with the other like something even modestly less disturbing than tongue-kissing a black mamba’ kind of deal. The contrast tends to put people off a bit.

It’s more Jake than you. But he’s better at playing it off, is the problem. So you end up coming off as a jackass to anyone with sufficiently high-resolution vision to register your woundedness at what has to look like a clear rejection. By your boyfriend of - how many goddamn years, now? 

So the dance continues, and you don’t fucking push him, because you’re not some kind of fucking sociopath who’s ungrateful enough for what he has to ruin the wholeass setup.

Again, there’s a reason you rode solo to Rose’s not-quite-bachelorette festivities. Dirkjake kabuki theater shouldn’t take the front row to your mental state on such a high-stakes day. At such an important moment.

You wonder whether Kanaya is thinking something similar, leaning delicately against the windowsill, watching you through her fringe of dark lashes as she toys with her empty mug.

KANAYA: Are Things Well With You And Jake  


So Rose isn’t the only mind-reader in this marriage, nice. You force yourself to maintain your chill, not to sigh or to react in a way that’d get dangerously close to sincerity.

DIRK: Don’t think there’s any risk of your wedding being upstaged as the nuptial event of the season, if that’s what you’re wondering.  


KANAYA: I Was Not Concerned About That Potentiality  


DIRK: He seems fine. We’re trucking along. Plenty of post-Game shit to sort out, still. Figure you’d understand that.  


KANAYA: All Too Well  


Maybe it was just fucking delusional on your part, but you did sort of expect things to stop being quite so agonizing, by now. But you’re in it for the long haul, no backing down. You don’t walk away from a challenge just because the uphill incline is a little steeper than you initially eyeballed.

It’s just hard. He’s finicky, retreats wholesale at the drop of a hat only to show back up right on schedule two days later, insisting nothing _happened_. Like, obviously the guy is practically swimming in some kind of trauma, and terminally incapable of saying jack shit about it aloud. It was never this hard before, you don’t think. At least you were never in a position of hurting him _again_ somehow, and that’s a line you’d rather kill yourself than put a toe near, so.

You’re careful. And he’s careful with you, but in a different sort of way.

But yeah, ‘he seems fine’, relative to how shit has been. It’s been pretty even keel, honestly, an Earth C-sized plateau in fineness since you all showed up here, and not even one you can totally account for without a History Channel style appeal to _aliens_ that just makes you sound like god’s perfect xenophobic douchebag. 

You don’t fucking know why it’s so much worse for him than for you. Why he gets tense enough to shatter his own wine glass about getting together with Jane, only to act so aggressively regular during the actual event that the sheer, radiant _denial_ freaks her out, too.

For what it’s worth, you’re completely regular around Roxy. So it doesn’t make sense, it _just_ being the trickster shit. There has to be something you’re missing, but from what you can tell, he’ll take it to a hypothetical heroic grave.

Though you guess it was fucked up enough to get your metaphysical hackles up about the sheer idea of a wedding. And it would be an overstatement to say that anything about your conversation with Kanaya has eased them back down even by a tic.

As you shift your weight from one foot to the other, Kanaya produces a phone from the pocket of her robe and frowns down at the display.

KANAYA: Well I Should Be Returning To My Own Preparations  


DIRK: Good luck with your nocturnal coterie.  


She was the one who brought up xenospeciated temporal niche differentiation in the first place, so you don’t think her scathing glance of wordless reply is entirely fair.

KANAYA: Its Interesting That Your Recognition Of Xenobiological Difference Does Not Seem To Extend Past Pithy One Liners  


DIRK: Fucking hell, don’t tell me they’re actually planning to sleep through the morning.  


KANAYA: They Have Suffered In Ways That Dim The Joyousness Of The Occasion  


KANAYA: I Would Not Request That Terezi Feign Enthusiasm On My Behalf  


KANAYA: Not That I Have Any Delusions As To Her Accomodativeness In Situations Outside Of Her Own Direct Volition  


KANAYA: But To Ask Alone Would Be An Imposition  


KANAYA: And Karkat In My Experience Is Not Especially Adept At Furnishing Most Forms Of Material Assistance At Least So Far As Aesthetic Preparations Are Concerned  


KANAYA: Hes Not Very Good With Buttons When Hes Nervous  


DIRK: Lot of words to say that you’re about to go try to shimmy into a wedding dress alone.  


KANAYA: Maybe So  


KANAYA: It Would Be Different In A World Without The Game  


KANAYA: But We Do Not Live In That World And We Must Simply Make The Best Of This One  


Okay, yeah, you can get behind that. In lieu of expressing any further potentially-situation-complicating opinions, you nod.

KANAYA: Alright You May Resume Your Skulking If You Wish  


KANAYA: Unless You Are Unexpectedly Possessed With The Desire To Furnish Assistance With Bridal Caparisonery  


DIRK: Now you’re speaking my language.  


DIRK: Can’t make any especially outlandish promises about my buttoning prowess, but I’ve got steady hands.  


She regards you curiously for a moment, then reciprocates a nod of acknowledgement and gestures you after her, down the hall in the opposite direction from which you came. So apparently she really _was_ hurting for some sort of assistance. Enough to temptingly dangle a historical horse-reference in front of you. You’re sort of itching to tell _someone_ in the area about the history of the word ‘caparisonage’, but you figure she already knows, given that she used it.

There’s plenty of subtext to dig into, though, at least until you can track Jane down at the post-wedding dinner and elaborately describe the origins of military equestrian funeral practices in early horse-sacrifice rituals. You seriously think Jake would get along with her better, less _weirdly_ , if you could somehow convey just how much of your bullshit she absorbs so he doesn’t have to deal with it.

But there’s also the more immediate strangeness to consider. Kanaya’s... loneliness, is that the word? You never considered it as a possibility, mostly because she and Rose function like a colonial organism when they’re coupled up, and you don’t interact with her outside of those contexts.

She directs you into a room that is the mirror image of the one you woke up in on the other side of the Mayoral Mansion, but substantially tidier and less strewn with Rose’s sleeping friends. The sun is rising in earnest, and even from this part of the building, golden light is beginning to trickle in through the windows.

There’s a large black bag hanging from a white silk screen, and she’s set up a comprehensive vanity in front of a mirror. You note the presence of only one tube of lipstick. You doubly note that, once the door is closed behind you, she moves quickly to get it in her hand.

KANAYA: Youre Welcome To Seat Yourself Anywhere You Like  


KANAYA: This Will Take A While  


DIRK: Gotcha.  


KANAYA: I Do Appreciate The Additional Pair Of Hands  


DIRK: No problem. Ain’t exactly much point in carting the things around, hangin’ off my wrists like a couple of grotesquely fleshy spiders, if I’m not _using_ them.  


KANAYA: Quite So  


You try not to watch curiously as she sets about wiping the cold cream from her face, running a thumbtip over her jawline and selecting a little jar of some other, presumably different-purposed cream to daub into the slight shadow with practiced, measured little stippling movements. You’ve hung out with Jane while she’s prepping for major events, but she makes the process look like a truly herculean amount of _work_ , like corporate-mandated warpaint.

Kanaya performs a subtle, graceful alchemy on her own skin, buffing out and recontouring her jawline, literally pulling out a fucking paintbrush to add a few light strokes of different shades of grey, here and there, though never shellacing the stuff on like you figured you were supposed to, based on your own periodic stints in the chair before photoshoots. You don’t see Kanaya’s mask assembling at all until it’s half-formed, and she looks - not different, but abruptly _like herself_.

DIRK: Just FYI, if you’d mentioned in advance that you didn’t want to prep for this shit alone, we probably could’ve scrounged up... basically anyone other than me for this.  


DIRK: Jade would’ve been into it, probably.  


And she backed out of Rose’s prewedding festivities, for whatever reason.

KANAYA: Was I Unclear About My Capacity To Handle This On My Own If You Find Assisting To Be Objectionable In Any Way  


DIRK: No. Crystal clear.  


DIRK: But if I were you -  


KANAYA: I Dont Think That Sentence Is Going To End On Any Particularly Auspicious Note So Please Take That Under Advisement When You Decide Whether Or Not To Continue Voicing It Aloud  


You try not to sigh. You do not succeed. No one would call you a big fuckin’ fan of being interrupted mid-bit, but you’re really, legitimately trying to be civil, here.

DIRK: It’s just got to be fucking depressing.  


KANAYA: Its My Wedding Day  


KANAYA: I Am More Than Elated Enough To Be Marrying My Beloved To Make Up For Whatever Specters Of The Excruciatingly Recent Past Haunt This World I Will Have You Know  


DIRK: I don’t know how I could’ve missed it, you sound so elated.  


KANAYA: This Is How I Sound When I Am Elated Yes Do You Take Issue With That  


KANAYA: There Is Enough Lingering Misery In This World Already Without You So Relentlessly Pointing It Out For Absolutely No Reason  


She finishes applying a steady-handed flick of eyeliner at the corner of her lashline with just the slightest hint of stifled annoyance.

DIRK: Fine. Moving on from horrifying shit without ever looking it in the eye long enough to figure out where it came from, that’s never come back to bite anyone in the ass.  


She doesn’t respond, focusing on her reflection in the ornate mirror with laserlike precision as she applies a layer of mascara, then another. Glancing back at you, she takes a deep breath, the breast of her robe rising and falling measuredly.

Unfortunately, you know this gesture. The line of frustration eases from between her eyebrows, the tension is forcibly removed from the set of her lips. Her forehead smoothes. Her eyelashes flutter closed for just a second on the inhale. You can see her letting your probing not-quite-insult go, setting it aside, picking up a character.

Jake pulls this shit whenever he doesn’t want a fight. You can fucking _see_ him building walls around objectionable topics of conversation, slapping on the mortar and the bricks in a slipshod heap so he can pretend they don’t exist.

She doesn’t say anything directly to you, but instead addresses herself in the mirror.

KANAYA: This Will Be Good  


KANAYA: This Will Go Well For Us And I Will Endeavor Not To Be Quite So Ridiculous About The Whole Production Lest I Create The Bruise In The Apple By Worrying At It With My Grabstub  


KANAYA: And I Will Human Marry Rose And We Will Be So Very Happy Together  


She takes two more pronounced breaths, inspecting her face in the mirror from all angles, tilted elegantly from side to side. Then she stands, takes the garment bag from the obfuscating screen, and slips behind it, already in the process of untying her robe.

You figure you’ll get called on when your help is needed, and stare for a moment at the vacant place left before the makeshift vanity.

These aren’t an unfamiliar set of fucking delusions that she’s spouting. You know these words, practically to the letter. And maybe they aren’t always fucking pernicious, but - it’s structurally unsound. It doesn’t hold weight. It’s a house build to crumble in a strong wind.

You take a deep, steadying breath of your own, and turn to address the shadowy figure Kanaya cuts from behind the screen, only her horns poking over.

DIRK: Hey, I don’t want to be a massive fuckin’ buzzkill, though that’s apparently most of my skillset, but I do think you’re right. If it seems too good to be true, that’s usually because it is.  


DIRK: My session involved a semi-literal kick in the teeth to roughly that effect. Marriage shit included.  


DIRK: Not to get too beat-happy on any particular rotting ungulate corpse, but if you sweep enough problems under the rug, you’ll eventually run out of rug, but you never run out of problems.  


She pauses, noticeably, even without being able to fully see her.

KANAYA: I Am Not Sweeping Anything Beneath Any Particular Furniture  


KANAYA: Recognizing That In The Context Of *Your Own Relationship* This May Be Difficult To Comprehend I Do Occasionally Speak Frankly With My Wife  


DIRK: Go for the fuckin’ throat, why don’t you.  


KANAYA: It Is A Viable Combat Strategy In My Experience Yes  


DIRK: _Fuck_ , alright, I get it. Clearly you and Rose were mutually born-slash-hatched to plight your motherfucking troth fresh out of middle school and take up needlepoint and homemaking and shitty fifties gelatin-dish architecture in an eternal goddamn cavalcade of doily-coated wedded bliss. Excuse me for throwing up a little in my mouth at the sheer jarring asynchrony of that image.  


DIRK: For either of you.  


KANAYA: You Dont Know Me Dirk Strider  


DIRK: I know Rose.  


DIRK: Better than you do, if you think that vision of matrimonial nirvana is going to work for her for more than a year or two.  


DIRK: Just tell me I’m wrong if that’s not what’s hanging you up about the whole thing. Tell me that’s not what you’re trying to convince yourself isn’t the case. Seriously. I’ll fuck right off.  


KANAYA: What The Fuck Is Your Problem With Me  


KANAYA: Actually Allow Me To Rephrase That Statement To Accommodate Greater Generality  


KANAYA: What The FUCK Is Your Problem  


KANAYA: You Dont Truly Believe That You Can Dissuade Me From This Decision On The Literal Morning Of My Marriage To The Woman I Love  


DIRK: I’m not trying to talk you down from the altar. Just don’t fuck up my daughter’s life over something you think she wants that she categorically doesn’t.  


DIRK: This shit doesn’t sting if it’s not raising legitimate issues. I’m not dicking around with you. I swear, this is me trying to help.  


KANAYA: Get Out Of My Dressing Room  


Fine. You gave it a shot. This isn’t your problem, anyway. You have your own shit to deal with, and unlike some people you could name, you actually give a shit about making it better, rolling up your sleeves and doing the work to get there.

You make it all the way to the door, hand on the goldwashed lever, before she stops you.

KANAYA: Before You Abscond Never To Darken My Doorstep Again  


KANAYA: ...  


KANAYA: The Buttons  


You could almost laugh.

DIRK: No problem.  


DIRK: You decent back there?  


KANAYA: Partially Buttoned But Otherwise Appropriately Clothed By The Conventions Of Human Modesty  


DIRK: Very culturally sensitive of you.  


KANAYA: Thank You I Sincerely Do Try  


Her back is to you when you step around the screen, and as she said, the dress is mostly-on, but largely unbuttoned. She wasn’t kidding about the meteoric excess of the things, either. A long row of silky white fasteners run the entire way from the hem of her skirt to the place between her shoulders where the strapless dress ends. She’s handled them up to about her lower back, but you can see pretty clearly why the rest would be a damn sight more complicated for the person wearing the thing to manage.

You’re not totally without experience in this area, either. Jane and Roxy have requested help with their fair share of fancy dresses, in the two years you’ve all spent on Earth C. Deific galas and shit, it’s not really your speed, clearly, though you put yourself through your paces during the events, just to prove that you can. It’s a good thing, too, the practice. Since can count on yourself not to behave _entirely_ like a feral, unsocialized creature under the more high-stakes condition of a family wedding.

It’s a nice dress, you think, as much as you think any dress is nice. Tightly figure-hugging white silk, which makes your own chest feel tighter than it already is, beneath a binder and two layers of shitty dress shirt, in sympathy. You get started on the tiny little buttons, though you’re immediately struck by just how much taller than you she is, this close.

You’d have to be blind and also fucking deaf, you figure, not to _get_ why Rose is struck-smitten with her. She’s beautiful, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Slowly, you figure out how to negotiate the little loops of silk and the buttons they match up to, and begin to inch your way up the dress.

KANAYA: Thank You Again  


DIRK: Like I said, it’s no problem. I don’t - legitimately, I don’t want you thinking I’m out here disapproving of any of this. I get it. God fucking knows, Rose thinks the sun shines out of your ass, and I’m not going to be the one who says it doesn’t. She loves you. You love her. Mazel.  


DIRK: That’s what it’s all about.  


KANAYA: You Are Not Incorrect  


DIRK: Please don’t tell me that sunshine analogy is grounded in fact, I don’t think I could take any more nightmarish information about xenobiology.  


KANAYA: You Are However A Phenomenally Unpleasant Conversational Partner  


DIRK: It’s been said.  


KANAYA: I Am Forever Attempting To Divine What Precisely It Is That She Wants  


KANAYA: Of Me And In General  


KANAYA: She Was Straightforward In A Way That She Rarely Manages To Accomplish In Conveying That This Marriage Was Something She Authentically Desired  


KANAYA: If You Must Know  


DIRK: Huh.  


KANAYA: Yes That Was My Approximate Reaction  


KANAYA: Which I Have Since Been Informed At Both Length And Volume Is Not A Typical Response To A Reasonably Heartfelt Proposal  


KANAYA: Karkat Has Truly Blossomed As A Connoisseur Of Human Courtship Practices Mystifyingly And Regrettably Enough  


KANAYA: Though She Did Not Seem To Have A Problem With My Hesitation  


KANAYA: Which Itself  


KANAYA: Well  


You wince involuntarily, though she doesn’t seem to notice. Okay, yeah. Some parts of that ring legitimate, both to Rose and to what you know about... relationships. Your perspective may be precipitously limited, but it does happen to encompass this particular incongruity.

Sometimes it feels like a dance you haven’t practiced for. And Jake goes to dip you, but forgets to pull you back up, leaving you sprawled ass-first on the dance floor, bruised and perplexed, and him spinning on through the routine without you. Like maybe it wasn’t a partnered deal for him in the first place. And you can’t be the asshole who grabs him by the shoulders and demands an explanation, no matter how much you think you need one. Not after all that shit.

So you get it, actually, and you’re abruptly realizing that you don’t want to think about this situation any further, and you don’t want to - you don’t want to be a part of this. Though you’ve already waded in about neck deep, haven’t you.

DIRK: Do you want to marry her?  


KANAYA: I Would Move The Cosmos Themselves Every Night To Wake Up By Her Side  


DIRK: I asked if you wanted to marry her.  


She sighs in frustration, her shoulders shifting beneath her smooth grey skin in visible discomfort.

KANAYA: Human Marriage Does Not Represent The Same Thing To Me That It Seems To Mean For Her  


KANAYA: I Have Done My Utmost To Acquaint Myself With Your Familys Associated Cultural Practices And I Recognize And Deeply Respect Their Value To Rose And In General  


KANAYA: I Understand Better Than Most The Joyousness Of Reviving Something Long Thought Dead That It Might Find New Roots In This World Through Us  


KANAYA: This Is A Celebration Of Our Collective Survival And Along With Us Of Those Beliefs And Ways Of Understanding The World Which We Hold Dear  


KANAYA: This Planet May Seem A Blank Slate But It Was Shaped By Our Hands And Many Others  


KANAYA: The Echoes Of Old Songs Remain Through We Who Heard Them Even If We Did Not Take Part In The Singing As I Gather She Did Not  


KANAYA: But This Is Something She Wishes To Amend Here  


KANAYA: In Those Terms It Makes Great Sense To Me And I Am More Than Glad To Take Part In Such A Thing  


KANAYA: Yet For All I Respect These Traditions And The System Of Belief From Which They Spring I Have One God And She Will Be Standing Beneath The Tasteful Floral Altarcanopy With Me Today  


You don’t exactly know what to say to that, so you err on the side of ‘nothing’. Thank fuck for the roughly ten zillion buttons running up the back of this dress. You’re glad to have something else to focus on.

The graceful musculature of her back is tense, as you work your way up between her shoulderblades. Like what she’s just said is actually, physically _heavy_ , which, well, of course it is. Fucking hell.

She inhales slowly, and you pause in your buttoning to ensure that she can complete the breath. Not wanting to interrupt. Just so fucking perplexed by the way she does this shit. Just... says that sort of thing.

After a moment, she raises her voice again, her tone softer.

KANAYA: We Have Discussed The Matter At Length  


KANAYA: It Is A Tenet Of My Own Worship That I Do Not Fuck Up My Gods Lives Lightly  


KANAYA: As You So Eloquently Suggested I Might  


DIRK: ...  


DIRK: Okay.  


KANAYA: Okay  


DIRK: Yeah, pretty rudimentary interjection of agreement. I do get it. Enough of it, at least. And just to be clear, I wasn’t exactly sitting on my hands, scheming about my Hollywood-perfect sinister father-in-law objection moment.  


KANAYA: No You Were Just Lurking Around The Venue Threateningly With A Sword  


DIRK: There are definitely more charitable ways to put that.  


KANAYA: And Yet I Chose That One  


DIRK: Fair enough.  


KANAYA: Would You Mind Fetching My Headpiece  


You would not mind, as a matter of fact. Wouldn’t mind literally any excuse to step away for a hot second, give yourself a chance to sort through some of that. You find the silken flower crown at her vanity, hanging from the corner of the mirror, and retrieve it.

Admittedly, you definitely got a little asshole-adjacent back there. You’re a big enough man to cop to it. You offer her the garment wordlessly, and she sets about negotiating with her horns, slipping it on over her half-tidied hair, the rest of it still in rollers or whatever the fuck those hair things are.

You clear your throat, feeling the inexplicable need to say something in your own defense.

DIRK: We had a whole hell of a situation in the game, which I alluded to a while back. Marriage as a concept kind of gets me in a weird place. I know it’s something I gotta work on.  


DIRK: Just because it was shit on my side of the fence doesn’t mean it ain’t greener over here. You’re smart people. You can make your own choices. Presumably without hard drugs involved. Rose is reasonable like that.  


She snorts.

KANAYA: Your Session Must Have Been Quite Exceptional  


DIRK: Exceptionally bullshit.  


DIRK: I hear your team actually won the fuckin’ thing, regular-wise.  


KANAYA: We Did Relatively Well For Ourselves Until The Mass Slaughter Began  


DIRK: Yeah, we staved that particular endgame off, but only by the skin of our teeth, if I’m being honest. Which I figure I might as well be.  


DIRK: Void sessions are a pretty cheap ticket directly off the handle, it turns out.  


KANAYA: Ill Remember That If I Ever Have Need Of Such An Emotional State  


DIRK: Yeah, I’m a veritable font of good advice today.  


DIRK: Just - it’s so fragile. Love. This sort of thing puts me on-edge like nothing else does. It’s not you and Rose.  


DIRK: It’s me acting like a neurotic prey animal because I don’t need a fucking psychiatrist to tell me the murdercide game in which I died multiple times traumatized the living hell out of me and once was enough with the mind-altering shit.  


DIRK: Dave can have that particular institutional coping mechanism to himself as far as I’m concerned.  


KANAYA: I Have No Plans On Holding Your Trepidation Or Basically Any Other Aspect Of Your Conduct Against You  


KANAYA: This Is My Wedding Day Dirk  


KANAYA: All Things Considered I Will Likely Not Remember This Conversation In An Hour Let Alone Any Longer Interval Of Time  


KANAYA: I Really Do Have More Important Things To Think About Than My Beloved Wife To Bes Tragic Ectofather And His Grievously Untreated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder That Compels Him To Behave Like A Jackass During Discussions Of Nuptials  


You legitimately come close to laughing. Definitely closer than you have in a while, and you get the sense that Kanaya can tell. The slight tug at the corner of her meticulously painted lips is eminently self-congratulatory.

Not like she hasn’t earned it several times over.

DIRK: Altruistic of you.  


KANAYA: What Can I Say I Am A Giver  


KANAYA: And You Sound Like Her Sometimes  


DIRK: Aw.  


KANAYA: In The Worst Way Possible  


At this, you huff out an earnest-enough chuckle, and she smiles back indulgently. You’ve insisted that you ‘got it’, this whole marriage shit, at some length, in substantially more in-depth one-on-one conversations with Rose. Hell, you probably sound like some kind of broken record, hesitancy-skips and all, with the extent to which you’ve made the same approximate contention as to ‘getting it’.

But maybe you haven’t _completely_ gotten it until now.

As she finishes up with her hair, you’re sent off on another brief fetch-quest for her veil, another thing of beauty that apparently fastens to the back of the flower crown... thing. You don’t make any more small talk, or any especially large talk, for that matter. She seems more at ease with you when you shut the fuck up, and even you can get tired of the sound of your own voice, sometimes.

You step back, at last, as she examines your collective handiwork in the full-length mirror ensconced behind the screen. You aren’t sure what she’s thinking, and you don’t ask, just watch as she runs her hands over her gown, touches everything, worries at the fabric of the veil, adjusts the hairpiece.

Frowning at the image of herself, she produces her tube of lipstick from her specibus and touches up the emerald paint on the slight arch of her cupid’s bow.

She speaks, once again, to her own reflection, though with you in the corner of her eyeline. Just enough to make it clear that she's partway addressing you, the steely determination unmistakeable in her tone.

KANAYA: This Will Go Well  


KANAYA: Our Wedding  


KANAYA: Our Marriage  


KANAYA: I Assure You Dirk You Will Have No Cause To Concern Yourself Over Roses Welfare Or That Of Our Human Spousal Union  


KANAYA: Everything Is Going To Be Okay  


She slides the lipstick down into the neckline of her gown.

KANAYA: Or Else  


**Author's Note:**

> Effusive thanks to the many friends consulted in the process of writing this, and especially to the brilliant and talented [@PanDaePan](https://twitter.com/PanDaePan) for his beautiful illustrations, and for being such an exceptional Partner In Dirkjake Crime!!! If you aren't already following him, please do so immediately.


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